Wolf on the Road

by Lynn Red

  He chuckled softly.

  “Until like a month ago, I had no idea you things existed. I thought that stuff was just for movies and books, but here we are. And now I’m one of you? How could anything be more incredible than that?”

  “When you put it that way,” Jake said and smiled, trailing off again for a second. “When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound half bad. I’m sorry I interrupted your life. I’m sorry I did something stupid. I knew I shouldn’t have turned you. Like, I understood that in the back of my mind—intellectually—that I was doing something very stupid. But emotionally?” He shook his head, laughing again. “Different story.”

  “So just come out and say it,” Mali said. She stood up and slowly made her way to the front of her cage. They were close enough that she thought maybe if she really stretched, she could touch Jake’s fingertips. The thought of being able to do that, just to feel his fingers and know Jake was there with her, was enough to calm Mali down. She shuffled over, and stuck her arm through the bars. “Can you reach me?” she asked. “I have the feeling that whatever you’re going to say will be better if I can feel you. And, uh, I’m just about to panic in here so it’d be nice.”

  As though the thought of touching her infused him with some kind of super-lupine strength, Jake flexed his arm and had to focus all his energy on not accidentally shifting. Going wolf hadn’t worked so well last time, but he knew he had to get out of that chain. With every ounce of power in his considerable shoulders, back and legs, he pushed.

  The chain at first resisted his urge to snap. He grunted softly, making sure not to cause any noise that might alarm their captors that he was going at the chains again. Jake groaned as the metal bit into his wrist, but the sight of Mali’s arm coming through the bars and reaching desperately for him was enough to make him forget how much his other forearm still ached. Jake strained and gave the chain a hard wrench.

  Pain flared through him, but he just gritted his teeth, clenched his jaw and pulled with everything he had. It wasn’t the chain that gave way first, it was the concrete where it was anchored. With another grunt, Jake sucked air into his lungs and flexed his entire body against the chain. Mali felt the floor shudder, and then saw a cloud of gray dust puff up and out of Jake’s cell. Seconds later, there he was, his hand reaching through the door, as he stretched to reach Mali.

  Their fingers brushed against one another, and then they managed to both shove themselves through the bars hard enough that their fingers curled together. Mali immediately let out a long-held sigh, and Jake cleared his throat and shook his head to try and get the looming pain out of his brain.

  Mali’s hand shook, but the longer she held on, the more calm she became. After another few moments of just holding one another, she’d come back down to earth. “So, come out and say it,” she said again, as soon as she was able.

  It took Jake a few moments to let himself open that particularly vulnerable part of himself. “This isn’t easy for me,” he said. “I’m not used to being so open... and I’m not used to trusting anyone. Most of my life I’ve been alone, just kind of doing my own thing. Hell, I hadn’t even talked to my brother in years until he found me a couple months ago.”

  Mali curled her fingertips gently against Jake’s palm, and then squeezed his hand tight. “Why’d he call you?”

  “Those bikers,” Jake said. “He knew I was kind of a nomad, that I didn’t have a family, or really anything else to keep me from going on crazy-ass adventures all across the world. He needed someone to figure out what they were up to, and who was leading them. They’ve been doing all kinds of moderately dangerous, but still annoying shit, in Jamesburg. He couldn’t let it fly, you know? So he called me.”

  “How’d he know you wouldn’t have a family? If he hadn’t talked to you in years, then...”

  “I’ve never changed much,” Jake said. “I’m four years older than Erik, and he’s been my best friend—my only friend—my entire life. Even when we don’t talk, we’re still connected. It’s a weird wolf thing, I guess. It isn’t like we’re psychic or anything, we just have a sense of our pack no matter where we are.”

  Mali’s thoughts drifted to her own family. Her father, her step-mother, her two sisters that she saw, at most, once a year were never really in the front of her mind. “No,” she said, “it isn’t a wolf thing. I’m the same way with my sisters. I don’t ever really talk to them, but I can always tell if something’s wrong.”

  “I guess we’re more alike than I thought,” Jake said, thoughtfully brushing his fingertips against the inside of Mali’s wrist.

  “Aside from the fur and the claws?” she asked with a smile that Jake could hear in the way her voice tilted upward. “Yeah, I guess so. So, what were you saying about the difference between knowing something and feeling it?”

  Jake let out a soft laugh. “Yeah, well, like I was saying. It’s hard for me to say this stuff, even if I really, really want to say it.” He took a deep breath. “I guess human men have an easier time of it?”

  Mali laughed out loud. “Hardly. Like you said, we’re a lot more alike than we are different. Human men are, either convinced they’re John Wayne, or they’re baby wieners. I mean, not like a baby’s wiener, I mean they’re babies and are also... you know what? Never mind.”

  Jake was chuckling to himself when she finally stopped. “I think I understand what you mean,” he said. “I think wolves are pretty much the same way except slanted more in favor of the John Wayne type than the wiener type. There aren’t many coffee houses with poetry night in shifter towns.”

  Mali let out another laugh, and when she did, she could feel relaxation pour through her. If holding Jake’s hand convinced her that the world was not, in fact, about to end, laughing with him made it all the more present, all the more real. “By the way,” she said when she finished, “I’m not letting you out of telling me what you meant.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Jake said. “What I was trying to say, and taking the most scenic possible route to getting there, is that when I first saw you, I knew something was special about you. I knew in that second, when I saw you on the ground, barely breathing, that I had to do whatever I could to keep you alive. I guess maybe if I weren’t out in the middle of the damn desert, I could’ve taken you to a hospital, but I didn’t have much of a choice. I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t done what I did.”

  “Sounds like you’re about to apologize for saving my life,” Mali said. “No need.”

  “But now we’re stuck in this lunatic’s basement, and unless my brother miracles something up, we’re both gonna have a lot of explaining to do to the shifter council. I think this might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, and trust me, I’ve done a lot of stupid shi—”

  Mali squeezed his hand intently. “Listen to me, Jake, and listen good. Okay?” She didn’t let him respond before continuing. “I meant what I said before. My life has been boring for a long, long time. I knew I wanted something to change, but I didn’t have the courage to actually do anything about it. And then all that shit happened in the desert, and suddenly I’m on an adventure I never thought I’d ever have. You didn’t just save my life, Jake, you changed it. Don’t you see that? It doesn’t matter what happens now. I’ve seen things I never could have without you, and I fell in...”

  She trailed off, immediately having second thoughts about admitting her feelings that she, honestly, didn’t herself understand.

  Jake wasn’t going to miss the chance. “You’re not the only one,” he whispered. “I think I fell in love with you the first time you shot some witty sarcasm my way. I know I was in love with you by the time we got here.”

  “I was going to say that I fell in, you know, the mud, but—”

  Jake groaned out loud, and Mali laughed. “I don’t know when it happened,” she finally said in a whisper, “but I know it did. And I know we’re getting out of here, and I know everything’s going to be fine. Your brother won’t let you down.”
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  “Okay, okay,” an increasingly, and infuriatingly familiar voice said as tiny feet tromped down the stairs. “Enough with the lovey-dovey bullshit,” Petunia said, her voice giddy and twitching. “We got a move to make. Jimmy! Get your idiots and grab these two, we gotta relocate until the council can come and get the jailbirds.”

  Before she was all the way down the steps, Mali and Jake squeezed hands one last time, and then both pulled back into their cages. Jake lay back down on the ground, making sure the chains were where they were supposed to be. Mali put on a Tony-winning performance of collapsing back against the wall and sighing with her hand pressed to her forehead. By the time Petunia hit the bottom of the steps and the half-witted bikers were on her heels, everything was exactly as it should have been.

  “Do whatever you want to me!” Jake cried out with such dramatic flair that it was hard for Mali to believe that Petunia didn’t see through it. “Kill me if you want, but let her go! She’s innocent! She’s innocent and we’re helpless! Don’t do something you’ll regret for the rest of your life!”

  Petunia puffed her chest out a bit, but then apparently realized his ploy. “You think I’m stupid enough to believe that load of horseshit?” she squealed. And then there went her hands again, waving around in the air like she was at a dance party. “I think either you or your brother, one of you, isn’t as stupid as you look. He hasn’t come after me yet, so he must be planning something. Also, I think he is the one who isn’t stupid.”

  “Either that, or you really do have him screwed to the wall,” Mali said in a weak, pitiful voice. Playing along with this was the easiest acting job she’d ever done. “To me it sounds like you pretty much have him figured out.”

  Petunia turned, slowly, until she was facing Mali’s direction. Mali stood up, let her legs wobble underneath her, and then collapsed again to the floor. “What do you mean, little girl?” the rabid bunny asked. “And how do you know?”

  Mali shrugged, acting as over the top in her struggle as she possibly could. “Just thinking about it,” she finally said, with a great deal of trouble. “You have us pretty much helpless, and Jake did break the law, so it isn’t like you’re wrong about what you’re saying. Some people might think kidnapping took it a bit too far, though.”

  “Humph,” Petunia grunted. “If I chewed your nose off, that would be too far. I’m just doing my citizen’s duty to protect shifters!”

  Mali sensed she’d made an in-road. “I gotta ask though,” she said, “why me? I mean, of all the people to happen across in the desert, the timing is just kind of wild, you know?”

  “It had nothing to do with you,” she Petunia said with a sneer that could have curdled buttermilk. “Your boyfriend over there thinks he’s been following my guys for the past month. Really, they’ve been following him. All it took was one slip up, one screwed up idea, one chivalrous misstep, one white knight pigeonshit move, and bam! The trap slammed shut. Now I’ve got Danniken right where I want him, and that’s that. No one’s gonna stand in Petunia Lewis’s way anymore!”

  “That’s absolutely incredible,” Jake said with such a practiced flatness to his voice that he would’ve made Bob Newhart jealous. “That plan is just... I mean, I don’t have the words to describe how incredible that is. Also, did you say ‘white knight pigeonshit’? Because if you did, that’s as amazing as the plan.”

  “You better believe it, beefcake,” Petunia snapped, whirling back around to face him. “Boys, take this one first. And be rough with him. I don’t want him getting any ideas about flattering me.” She paused for a second. “Actually let him flatter me all he wants. But it isn’t gonna do a damn bit of good, got it, loverboy?”

  As soon as the four goons approached the door, Jimmy swung it open. Jake lunged, but the men just laughed at him as he flailed helplessly at them. He managed to catch one in the jaw with a punch, but it was so noodle-armed and impotent that it just bounced off and Jake just about fell into their waiting arms.

  “I think he gets it now,” Petunia said, turning around again, in her slow, villainous way, “don’t you?”

  “I think you’re gonna get it!” Mali spat. “You don’t deserve to stand on the same ground as him! You’re just a... a little asshole!”

  “What did you call me?” Petunia stood up on her tiptoes, as if the extra three inches tacked onto her four-foot-nothing frame made any difference. “Did you call me... little?”

  Mali shot forward, grasping the cell bars and squeezing until her knuckles went white. “Yeah,” she said, “what’re you gonna do about it?”

  Petunia arched her feet as hard as she could, and managed to get another inch or so out of the effort. “Is that a threat?” she screeched. Her beady black eyes were so bloodshot they looked red. “Are you threatening me?” Her voice reached a fevered pitch that reminded Mali of some kind of screaming banshee, except Petunia was, in that moment, more insane than she’d ever been. From her tiny pocket, she produced a pair of metal dentures, slapped them into her mouth and repeated herself. “Was that a threat? I’ll turn you into wolf steak and grind your bones into cornmeal. Or bone meal. Whatever, who gives a shit!”

  When her S sounds were replaced with syrupy lisping, Mali thought absently that it would be funny at any other time, but right now, she was staring down at a certifiable lunatic... who apparently wanted to eat her. That, Mali thought, was probably real. Still, if flattering her captor didn’t work, then maybe getting her so furious that she flew into a rage and did something idiotic would do some good.

  Still, she wasn’t sure what would happen after, as Jake was so weakened from the drugs that he could hardly stand, and there were four fairly large, if smelly and scrawny, bikers holding him up. “What the hell,” she said to herself. “Come get some, shrimp!”

  Petunia roared so loudly that she actually startled both Jake and Mali, even if it was a little bit squeaky for a proper roar, it was plenty terrifying. The diminutive tyrant clacked her metal teeth together and leapt straight at Mali with her hands—claws—outstretched and thrashing wildly. Mali stuck her foot out, and caught Petunia right in the jaw. The bunny flopped backwards, did a somersault, and climbed back to her feet. She clenched her tiny fists, breathed hard and fast, and looked like she was ready to kill. Her eyes bloodshot and her teeth clamped together in a vice, Petunia was furiously looking around for the best avenue of attack. She juked left, darted right, and screeched again.

  Mali grunted in pain when a tiny fist caught her in the stomach, and then felt herself getting wilder. She couldn’t control it, she couldn’t stop herself, she was shifting, and if Jake’s reaction to the anti-shifting drugs was any reaction, she was about to be in a world of hurt.

  “No!” she heard Jake call, “don’t shift! Just fight it! Whatever she shot us up with will kill you!”

  “It won’t kill you,” Petunia added helpfully, as she retreated across the cell and wiped the blood on her lip. “But I probably will if you don’t do something real impressive.”

  Mali bit down on the inside of her cheek. Pain shot through her, and the coppery taste of blood jolted her out of the transformation she couldn’t figure out how to fight. Her muscles ached and her heart was racing, and with every passing second, the sweating was really starting to get out of control. Her hair stuck to her cheeks and the longer she and Petunia were in the middle of this snarling Mexican standoff, the more fascinated the biker gang was getting.

  “You want some help with that, ma’am?” Jimmy drawled.

  “Shut up!” Petunia screeched. She took a deep breath, but then turned around, too furious not to get a few more words in. “Just shut up and let me concentrate! How am I supposed to fight when—”

  Mali dove straight at the tiny monster. She slammed one shoulder into Petunia’s stomach, and then drove her backward into the bars. First Petunia yelped, and then she croaked and started thrashing wildly around. Her tiny claws caught Mali in the face, leaving behind four red tracks on her cheek. Mali backha
nded Petunia, but somehow Petunia clamped her metal teeth on Mali’s hand, biting down until blood welled up. “Get it off me!” Mali shouted, “it’s biting me!”

  Petunia recoiled, angrily sneering at Mali. The blood running off her teeth made her even more ghastly than she normally was, and the wild lisping and squalling made things worse still. “I’m not an it!”

  She chomped down again, this time getting her teeth around Mali’s wrist and biting so hard it felt like she was about to crack the bone. Mali punched and slapped at Petunia, then lifted the bunny-shifting nightmare off the ground and tried to shake her off, all to no avail. “She’s like a goddamn snapping turtle! I can’t get her off!”

  The more fevered and panicked Mali became, the longer the hair growing out of her neck, her shoulders and her back grew. She took a deep breath, slapped at Petunia again, and then gritted her growing teeth. There was no fighting it: she couldn’t stop herself from shifting. Mali just didn’t have the experience, didn’t have the ability, to stop herself mid-shift, and she knew as soon as she did, whatever was coursing through her veins was going to stop her dead in her tracks.

  Then again, it didn’t happen with Jake immediately, he had a couple of seconds to act before he collapsed.

  Mali shot a quick glance in Jake’s direction. He was still limply hanging in the clutches of a pair of bikers. The slack-jawed werewolves were watching Petunia and Mali’s fight with such rapt interest that Mali thought they looked like kids staring at a cartoon after four bowls of sugary cereal. He lifted his head though, so maybe, just maybe, he was starting to come out of the stupor. She caught his eyes and he nodded his head so slightly that Mali barely noticed, but it was there.

  She threw back her head and unleashed the loudest sound she’d ever made in her life. The roar that blasted out made her flare with life, as though making that sound infused her with so much energy that it began crackling from her pores. The pain came next in horrible, brain-bending waves, but the energy was still there. For how long, she didn’t know, but it was there and she didn’t have a choice.